Remote work: love it or hate it? However you feel about it, some form of remote or hybrid work is here to stay for millions of Canadian workers, which means finding tools to make remote work more enjoyable and productive. NEWT comes loaded with features you can quickly modify to do just that.

1. Established Office Hours Reduce Burnout

One of the biggest drawbacks to remote work is the sensation of non-stop work. Burnout is a substantial risk as employees struggle to establish and maintain healthy boundaries between their personal and work lives. Digital and mobile devices are a huge contributor to that non-stop work sensation as, according to Syntonic, 87% of businesses rely on their employees to make use of their personal devices for business reasons. The result? “Leaving the office” (ie. walking from the kitchen table to the living room couch) doesn’t prevent clients and co-workers from reaching you on your mobile phone at any time of day or night.

Use NEWT’s portal to set definitive office hours. Teammates and clients can reach you during business hours, but work calls will go to voicemail or a group of on-call employees during your company’s off-hours, allowing you to unplug and unwind.

2. Conference Calls Reduce Fatigue and Increase Productivity

With fewer in-person meetings, there has been a rapid increase in video conferencing over the last two years. While video conferencing provides some sense of social interaction that many of us are missing, “Zoom fatigue” is a real thing. Video conferencing limits mobility and is more mentally exhausting. Plus, not everyone loves seeing their own face on screen for hours at a time; it’s unnatural and has “negative emotional consequences.”

Voice calls have several discernible benefits over video calls:

  • They may actually be more productive than video calls
  • Conference calls use less data. This results in fewer glitches, fewer calls dropped, and clearer sound.
  • They are also more secure. Conference calls are harder to hack into (there’s no Zoom-bombing on a conference call!), making audio calls more secure than video.
  • Voice calls are more suited to travel and don’t inhibit mobility. You can take a call while in the car or train on the way to the cottage, on even while on a walk, so you don’t need to be chained to your desk all day.

3. Inbound/Outbound Fax Via Email Reduces Home Office Devices

Millions of fax machines are purchased and over 17 billion documents are faxed annually, making the fax machine far from extinct. But you don’t need a fax machine to send and receive faxed documents, which is good news in a remote-work era. With your NEWT Faxbox feature, a client can say “I’ll fax that right over” and you can head to the coffee shop or the cottage, knowing that the information you need will be waiting in your inbox. In the event you are in the office part time, or full time, receiving a document through email affords more privacy than having it print out on an office fax machine. Plus, it’s more environmentally friendly and reduces paper wasted on printing spam faxes.

4. Manage your NEWT PBX Remotely with NICE

When the pandemic started, one of the biggest challenges our customers faced was remotely managing their PBX, as it required a direct connection to the PBX appliance at the client site. We took that issue seriously and we now offer fully cloud-based and secure remote management through our Configuration Facility 2.0. This upgraded interface allows for flexibility in Cloud, On-Premises, or Hybrid Deployment Options. Wherever you are, you can make adjustments to your PBX configuration- no VPN or on-site access required! This interface offers an improved and secure web-based experience for managing your PBX solution from anywhere. If you want this CF 2.0 addition to your NEWT PBX solution, give us a call.